EVERETT – If your name is Carfagna, then baseball must be in your blood.
Such is the case for the Everett AquaSox’s new owners.
The Carfagna family was introduced as the new owners of the AquaSox on Wednesday, and Everett is getting a group that is fanatical about its baseball.
“I can’t remember when I wasn’t in love with baseball,” Peter A. Carfagna, the family patriarch, said. “I was just passionate about all sports, but baseball in particular. Growing up in Cleveland, I kept track of almost every inning of every Indians game. I kept score of every game as a kid. That’s what you did.”
Peter A. Carfagna, along with his wife, Rita Murphy Carfagna and his eldest son, Pete E. Carfagna, bought the team from Mark Sperandio, who owned the short-season, single-A, Northwest League team since 1998. The Carfagnas, who reside in Cleveland, take control of the team when the sale is finalized on Oct. 1. Pete E. Carfagna will relocate to the Puget Sound and take over as vice president of baseball operations, overseeing the club on a day-to-day basis.
The Carfagnas already made a good first impression with the AquaSox front-office staff. Director of corporate sales Brian Sloan recalled his first meeting with Peter A. Carfagna at an AquaSox game this season.
“He was asking about a promotion we do and I gave him some information,” Sloan said. “Looking back now it seems like a mini interview. I just remember him being a very nice gentleman.
“Right off the bat my first impression, not knowing who he was, is he’s a super-nice guy,” Sloan added. “I hoped I’d have the opportunity to work with him in the future. Little did I know I was going to be working for him.”
The Carfagnas are a family already immersed in baseball. They own the Lake County Captains, a Cleveland Indians affiliate located in the Cleveland suburb of Eastlake, who play in the full-season Class A South Atlantic League. Peter A. Carfagna and Rita Murphy Carfagna are the majority owners, Pete. E. Carfagna is involved in an advisory capacity, and the family’s other three children, Michael, Jim and Anne, have also been involved in the team’s operations.
And minor league ownership is something the family always considered.
“Every summer we’d go to Chicago to watch the Jamestown Jammers, which is at the same level the AquaSox are,” said the 51-year-old Peter A. Carfagna, who for 25 years has worked in corporate law in Cleveland. “As a family we loved it, we enjoyed it so much. We saw a family owned the team and we would say, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to own a team someday, somehow?’ “
To that end, the Carfagnas contacted Bob Richmond, the president of the Northwest League who is also instrumental in matching minor league teams to owners, about acquiring a Cleveland Indians affiliate. Richmond matched the Carfagnas with the Columbus (Ga.) Redstixx, which the Carfagnas bought in 2000.
The family went through some growing pains as absentee owners of the Redstixx. They moved the team to Eastlake two seasons ago, where they could be directly involved, and have had far more success. The last two seasons the Captains have drawn more than 860,000 fans, an average of more than 6,100 per game.
“I think we learned from that the need to be ever present,” Peter A. Carfagna said. “It’s important, we learned to be there every day.
“We could go to every game and establish personal relationships with people and sponsors and fans,” Peter A. Carfagna added. “You knew the faces and the names, whereas if you’re intermittent, it’s not a real relationship except for a very small few. The difference was we could build a broad foundation where relationships could grow.
“That’s the biggest lesson we took from before. We’re doing it right this time.”
That’s where Pete. E. Carfagna comes in. Pete E. Carfagna, who spent the previous three years as an executive at sports marketing company International Management Group, is relocating to the northwest in October to take over day-to-day operations of the club.
“This is so exciting and I’m going to engross myself in this,” ’ the 25-year-old Pete E. Carfagna said. “Thank goodness Mark has put in place a tremendous staff. He’s gone to each member of the staff one-by-one and we know we’re inheriting a first-class organization. We’re very excited about that and we’re going to obviously rely upon them to continue to do the jobs that they’ve done. For me it’s going to be overseeing things and helping out where I can.”
The Carfagnas made three visits to Everett this season to scout their potential purchase and it didn’t take long to be convinced it was the right move.
“It just got better and better with each visit,” Peter A. Carfagna said. “The closer we looked, the better it looked: the staff and the operations and the vibrance of the fans. It went both ways, the staff embraced the fans and the fans embraced the AquaSox. It’s a love affair. On the good nights, the sunny nights, it was just like what we dream about as owners. It was a celebration of baseball. We really got impressed by all of that and decided this is what we’re looking for.”
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